


5 Losses

by spuffyduds



Category: due South
Genre: Multi, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds





	5 Losses

The first one was the worst.  
I hadn't any practice.  
And not much in the way of memories:  
A lap I fell asleep in,   
Her singing with my father.  
The way she smoothed my eyebrows  
With her thumb.

With the second there was guilt.  
A phone call full of silences,  
A question never asked—  
Last in a line of hundreds.  
Later, I considered exorcism  
Or psychotherapy.  
But decided I deserved a haunting.

The third was loss wrapped up in a return.  
I thought she might absolve me,  
Let me fix one thing, once  
With someone who was still alive.  
But her heat blew cold and her smile was teeth  
And when I'd given it all up,  
Dropped everyone and _leaped_\--  
When I felt a huge hot blooming in my back—  
She had a stricken look.  
She did.  
But she still let go.

The fourth one left  
To be somebody else.  
I think he'd grown afraid  
Of who he might become  
With me.

The fifth one was--abstract.  
My vaunted self-sufficiency,  
Containment and control,  
My status as an island nation.  
Ray peeled it all off  
With the uniform.  
This was the only one  
That didn't hurt.

 

\--END--


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